This subject matter absolutely irks me. We once called the cops in Santa Monica over someone vandalizing our car and I had my dog out who is a 25 lb Maltese-Poodle. The most harmless guy in the World. Anytime Henry (that's his name) got close, the cop would put his hand on his gun and take a step back and kept saying: "If you don't get that dog away from me I will shoot it." I mean, are you ()!^#*!^ kidding me?
On the flip, I was at the airport coming back from Chicago to LA with Henry and a CPD saw Henry and came right up to him and started playing with him asking all types of questions. So we should never generalize of course. Overall though my experience is that they need an extra course in handling pets.
Exactly, everyone is going to have their own response, and that's why it should be important that nobody has an extra "rights" that others don't (like being able to kill humans & dogs without consequence).